The Pope and the wind in our subconscious

Leave it to the dreamlife to give me some blog material.

I had a dream that I was the pope- the real pope, meaning I wasn't me as the pope. And actually I might have just been some other type of clergy, like a bishop or a rector-some authority within the church order who wears white robes and carries a cross staff. And yes, I'm sure there's a much more appropriate name for it other than a cross staff. Whoever I was, I was specifically assigned to this factory slum area. There was at least one assassin out to kill me in this little community, but the church had guards posted on every street. So I was able to carry out my daily ritual of walking through the streets, being among the people and blessing everyone (And there ends my unconscious understanding of the clergy's daily responsibilities). But we all knew it was just a matter of time before I got shot. I could feel the moment getting closer and closer, and I woke up just as I thought it was about to happen.

But that was just my dream, and really a pretty common one. They are often plots involving conspiracies and chases and the like. Usually they are a bit more complicated with much more detail. And to be honest they can often leave me feeling a bit lonely, because I rarely meet anyone with such an active dreamlife who really wants to take the time to listen to all my detail. But apparently it runs in the family. This morning when I went in to get Olivia, she immediately started telling me about a dream she had:
Olivia: "Mommy, I had a happy dream. The wind lifted me up to the sky."
Me: "Wow, Olivia! Really?"
Olivia: "Yep."
Me: "And what did you see up there?"
Olivia: "I found a rectangle."
Me: "Wow. Did you sit on the rectangle?"
Olivia: "No. We just played and played."

I spent much of breakfast trying to figure out what might have happened yesterday that would have triggered such an idea, but I came up with nothing.

Later today as we were sitting outside, the wind started to blow pretty strongly, and Olivia said, "Mommy! The wind is going to lift me up to the sky again! I want to see the rectangle!"

For my own sanity, and so as not to overstep any bounds, I never try to "interpret" dreams. I'm just not comfortable assuming any kind of understanding in that area. But regardless, I think I can safely say, playing with rectangles in the sky is pretty outstanding.

An Acceptable Time

In the past year, I've been slightly moved by the deaths of significant figures like William Styron, Kurt Vonnegut, and Luciano Pavarotti--just enough to pause, soak in how they'd changed me, and then carry on. But last week, when I heard about Madeleine L'Engle's death, I couldn't process it so easily. And I'm not ready to be done with it, because I've figured out that any time I spend "with" Madeleine L'Engle usually results in my becoming, if only for a short time, a more honest, loving person.

The night I found out Madeleine L’Engle had passed away, I slept with the windows open. The moment I found out, I sent the article from the New York Times to everyone I knew that might share in the paying of respects with me. And within a few hours of finding out, I’d picked up one of her Crosswicks journals, wanting to be reassured that she’d still speak to me from her new location. I was relieved to find the connection still strong. Over the past few days, I've been going back through her books, looking at the passages I'd marked. Below are a couple of excerpts I found particularly fitting for this time of remembering:

“I look at Mother, and I think that if I am to reflect on the eventual death of her body, of all bodies, in a way that is not destructive, I must never lose sight of those other deaths which precede the final, physical death, the deaths over which we have some freedom: the death of self-will, self-indulgence, self-deception, all those devices which, instead of making us more fully alive, make us less.” (Summer of the Great Grandmother)

“What I think is that if we’re still around after we die, it will become more like those moments when we let go, than the way we are most of the time. It’ll be--it’ll be the self beyond the self we know.” (A Ring of Endless Delight)

Oh Toodles

Meet Toodles and Mama Toodles. To most people, they would appear to be child safety locks to be put on cabinet doors, but to our daughter, they are Toodles, the handy machine from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, that helps Mickey get out of various jams by offering up odd tools at the most critical moments. Today Toodles and Mama Toodles have helped us clean our playroom, find special leaves, and get to the bathroom before we have an accident. In return, we've put them down for a nap, taken them on hiking trips, swung them in the hammock, and read bedtime stories to them. It's in moments like these that I long for the untainted creativity of a child.